The present invention relates to a process for producing metrological structures particularly used for direct measurement of errors introduced by alignment systems.
As is known, registering among successive maskings is particularly critical in the photolithographic process used in the production of integrated circuits.
Registering is achieved conventionally by the exposure device, technically known as a stepper machine, by identifying appropriate alignment markings defined both on the substrate and on layers which are deposited or grown on the substrate. The apparatus, whether electronic, optical, mechanical or based on any combination of these systems, that performs the recognition of the alignment markings is technically known as an alignment system.
The alignment markings are altered by successive production steps, including deposition of materials, growth of oxides and the like. In any case, by using the reference pattern obtained with marking recognition, or the image of the grid, the image is projected with precise coordinates on the entire surface of the substrate being processed.
Registering error is usually due to various concurrent causes. This error depends on an error in recognizing the alignment marking, which is caused for example by an alteration thereof during the production steps, such as by a distortion of the optical system used in the photolithographic process, by an error in the positioning of the mechanical bench which supports the substrate, by an error in writing the mask, or by a distortion of the substrate itself.
The various described components generally have a contribution of the same order of magnitude and produce misalignments which can be interpreted and discriminated only by using complex interpretative models, so that it is difficult to exactly and assuredly identify the source of each individual contribution to the statistical distributions of the registering measurements performed on the processed substrates. Furthermore, as is equally known, the alignment measurement instruments themselves are affected by an instrument error which is not negligible. Such statistical investigations require a large number of samples of processed substrates, which have a significant cost. This cost presents an added drawback to performing accurate error evaluation.
One of the conventional methods used to evaluate the error in recognizing the alignment marking consists in measuring the register between two successive masking levels on processed substrates by using appropriate misalignment measurement instruments which use dedicated structures with measurement profiles defined on the substrate itself. The values obtained are then evaluated and compared to one another in order to discriminate the degradation introduced by each individual layer, such as a metallization layer, a polysilicon layer, a silicon nitride layer and other such layers.
In evaluating the measured data, it is furthermore necessary to take into account the fact that when comparing different distributions, for example each obtained with a different adjustment of the alignment system, the differences observed in the measurements depend exclusively on the intervention performed and not on drifts of the mechanical supporting bench or alterations of the lens or statistical fluctuations.
In particular, statistical fluctuations are particularly important, since they are linked to the technical requirements of the production process. As is known from statistics, it is in fact necessary to take into account the trailing values of the distributions up to three times the variance shown by the entire set of measurements or samples obtained, since the trailing values of the distributions are more severely affected by statistical fluctuations.
Finally, as also known from statistics, the larger the number of samples used, the better will be the approximation provided by statistical measurement. Thus, since the number of alignments per individual substrate is normally rather small, it is necessary to have a considerable number of substrates on which the measurements can be performed; this need is currently contrasted by the high cost of said substrates, which provides a deterrent to using a large number of samples.